Landor's Cleanness

Cleanness, both in the sense of a neoclassical stylistic purity and of an individual moral and political probity, was centrally important to Walter Savage Landor''s writing, both in his prose and poetry. At the same time, this commitment to purity was contaminated in a variety of eloquent and complicating uncleannesses: his own fiery temper and frequent rages; his sometimes scurrilous and sexually...